United Seem To Do ‘An Arsenal’

Well, well, well. It looks like we have reached the ‘Arsenal stage’. What is that? Well, every summer one or other Arsenal board member declares that Arsene Wenger is free to spend, that he’s got 40m available, or even more. Wenger, obviously, never spends that because he allegedly doesn’t want to, he prefers developing youth. The alternative explanation of course is that they don’t have the money.

United, armed with the money received from the sale of Cristiano Ronaldo, were expected to launch a major spending spree. Nothing like that materialised: as you all know, we signed Michael Owen on a free transfer, Gabriel Obertan for 3m and Antonio Valencia for 15.25m. Sir Alex confirmed that he wouldn’t sign any more players this summer, to the dismay of many fans who expected spectacular names this summer.

However, David Gill and the Glazer family insist that Fergie does have the cash at his disposal, he merely refuses to spend it because the right targets aren’t available at reasonable prices. To be honest, it sounds like the Arsenal scenario: we’re trying to convince the world that there’s nothing wrong but actually we have to pay off the interest and that takes priority.

It is possible, of course, that David Gill actually told the truth. In that case I back Fergie’s judgment: if he believes that the likes of Aguero are overprices this summer but could get them cheaper next season then so be it. However, if we are forced to turn to these ‘economic’ type of signings then I’d prefer if the club revealed the truth to us. We’ll never know, I guess, at least not before next summer.